Stephen Piscotty hit a ball into the second deck in left field, put his head down and rounded the bases. Dodgers players held out their hands in question. No umpire signaled fair or foul. Only after Piscotty returned to the A’s dugout did the crew confer and rule his drive a long strike.
A’s manager Bob Melvin protested. Two umpires donned headsets for a review that upheld the foul ruling. Piscotty returned to the batter’s box and grounded out.
Much has gone wrong for the A’s in their season-opening losing streak, yet it appears there are indignities still to explore. A 5-1 loss to the Dodgers on Tuesday night kept the A’s winless and dropped them to 0-6 for the first time in more than 100 years, matching the 1916 Philadelphia A’s for the worst start in team history.
“I don’t think there’s any panic,” Piscotty said. “This group is full of veteran guys that know it’s a 162-game season. So it’s not fun. We’re not happy about it. But I think this group looks at it through the right lens and has some perspective on 162. So we need to improve, we need to do it sooner rather than later. But there’s no panic.”
Melvin said Tuesday night he has “said things” to the team but did not share his message with reporters. He said he could consider a lineup shake-up Wednesday, when the A’s face reigning NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer. Options are limited with Matt Olson sidelined by a knee contusion and catcher Sean Murphy unlikely to start the day game.
Ramón Laureano returned from a wrist injury Tuesday and combined with Jed Lowrie for four of the A’s five hits. The A’s took their first lead of the season in the first inning against Clayton Kershaw; it vanished a half-inning later. Kershaw retired 20 of the final 22 batters he faced. A’s starter Chris Bassitt could not match that pace early against a deep lineup.
“It’s six games into a six-month season,” Bassitt said. “I mean, it sucks to start this way. We know how good we are. But again, I think it’s more so just embarrassing. It’s not so much a panic long-term, it’s just embarrassing right now.”
Starting a season with a string of losses is unusual. Having one during the season is less so. An optimist could point to this: Of the past 40 World Series winners, 29 lost at least five games in a row at some point in their title season. That includes all three recent Giants championship teams. Only 15 of the 40 had streaks of six or more losses, though. None lost more than eight straight.
“We’ve gone through rough patches in the past and bounced back,” Piscotty said. “It gives us an opportunity to show everyone what we’re made of and how we bounce back. And it’s only a matter of time until that happens.”
Lowrie, the second A’s hitter to face Kershaw, doubled off the wall in left-center. He pulled into second base, removed his elbow pad and clapped toward the dugout, beckoning. Laureano followed with a double to right-center. It gave the A’s their first lead of 2021 in their 46th inning.
It was short-lived. Edwin Ríos singled to open the second and scored on Austin Barnes’ double two batters later. Bassitt avoided more damage with help from Mitch Moreland, a 2016 Gold Glove first baseman starting in place of Olson. Moreland cut down one run on a play at home and robbed Corey Seager of an RBI hit with a sliding play up the first-base line.
Defense could not save Bassitt in the third when Max Muncy turned on a 1-2 fastball for a two-run homer and Rios crushed a 1-2 curveball for a solo homer. They were the first hitters to take Bassitt deep at the Coliseum since 2019. He did not allow a home run in Oakland over 44 ⅓ innings in 2020 between the regular season and playoffs.
“They whooped my ass today,” Bassitt said of the Dodgers. “No way else around it. ... I don’t know if I hit a spot all night to be honest with you. My location was just awful. But again, I haven’t had many teams when I was missing a lot of spots hit me like that.”
Bassitt still became the first A’s starter to work six innings this season and gave a reprieve to a bullpen that lost two members to the IL on Tuesday. Reliever Jordan Weems, just called up, allowed a homer to Mookie Betts in the ninth that elicited a cheer from a largely pro-Dodgers crowd.
Piscotty was left chasing his first homer this season after the ruling on his drive in the fourth. Melvin said he received no confirmation from home plate umpire Adrian Johnson but first-base umpire Dan Bellino “told me it was 15 feet foul.”
“I swear I saw the third-base umpire point fair,” Piscotty said, “so I just kept going. And then got in the dugout, saw them reconvene and that’s never a good sign. And that’s the call they made.”
The Chronicle’s King Kaufman contributed to this report.
Matt Kawahara covers the A’s for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: mkawahara@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @matthewkawahara
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A’s lose sixth in a row, match worst start in team history - San Francisco Chronicle
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